and then there was this. >> there's no political tea leaves to be read here? >> we don't have any tea woorb there's some water here, as best i can tell. this has been just the most extraordinary honor. >> and joining me now is steve cross. welcome. >> thanks, nice to be here. >> i want to thank you for getting every single interview i have been trying to get in the last two years on cnn, first of all. >> i have done well. a lot. >> let me ask you at the top, why do you think they keep coming to you, because there are two schools of thought. one is you're the most brilliant interviewer on television, and the other is that you give them a soft time. neither of which i suspect is entirely the truth. >> i think first of all, he likes "60 minutes." we have a huge audience. we have a format that suits him. it's long. we can do 12 minutes or 24 minutes. we do a good job of editing. and i have been doing these interviews with him since a few weeks before he declared his candidacy. so i covered him during the campaign and have kept doing it in the white house. but i th